he served as singapore's foreign secretary and the dean of the country's school of public policy. he has a new book out "the great convergence, asia, the west and the logic of one world." welcome back. you start the book with good news. since everybody in the united states and the west has been feeling blue, tell us what the good news is with and why we should be happy. >> actually i'm surprised by the kind of level of posseessimism europe and america. the world has never been in better shape if you look at the view. the number was dying in dying in conflicts is the lowest it has ever been. in term of global poverty the only u.n. goal is having more than having by 2015. and the middle class, and this is a really stunning news, if you look at where asia is today, they are 500 million people living in middle-class living standards today in 2013 in asia. by 2020, which is seven years in now, the number will explode from 500 million to 1.75 billion. an increase of 3.5 times in seven years. we've never seen this before in human history. that's going to change the chemistry of the world